


I didn't know it then, but I know it now

by phrynne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Kissing, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, POV First Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 13:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15244554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrynne/pseuds/phrynne
Summary: He showed up one day, with my wand. I snapped it in two. And that was the turning point for us. A broken wand, not a kiss.





	I didn't know it then, but I know it now

His palms are raised towards me.

It was just a dream, I say, but what I still don’t know is if this, right here, is part of a dream too.

Light filters in flakes in between us, his outstretched hands a plea. I gather his hands in mine, lift them to my lips. They’re warm, I’m always cold, but he doesn’t flinch away. Breathe, I say, but what I still don’t know is how to breathe around him.

He nods, then stills completely. I’m suspended in time, his hands in mine, my words all gone. I wish we both could go back to sleep, I wish, I wish, I wish, but what I wish for I can never tell.

He falls asleep after long minutes leaking into hours. I lie awake at his side, a white watcher of restless nights.

Draco, he had said in his sleep, before, but what I don’t know is what becomes of me when he says my name like this.

I could tell you how we ended up here, lying together in bed, rumpled sheets around our half-naked bodies, his messy hair on my pillow, his breath on my neck, his fingers in mine. It could be a story of fight and fury. Of hatred and redemption. Twists and turns and unspoken truths. And it was everything like that and nothing like that at all.

He showed up one day, with my wand. I snapped it in two. And that was the turning point for us. A broken wand, not a kiss.

The kiss happened one night, when I didn’t mean to. He was dating Ginny at the time. They were supposed to be married soon, or so he said to me with his lips trying to smile a little, but his eyes… they never followed. You could say I’m a cheater, or at least I helped someone cheat, and you’d be right. I was so many wrong things in my life, but I never wanted to be this. I only knew he was unhappy. And, somehow, I couldn’t stand that knowledge.

You are not in love with her, I heard myself say, but what I didn’t say was that I hoped, more than anything, to be right. He looked at me in a way I’ll never forget, not even now, not ever. Like he couldn’t believe I was real. It was that look that did it. I was kissing him before thinking, before breathing, before knowing… I started it, but he kissed me back so hard, like he’d missed me for ages, but how? We were never supposed to happen. We’re not a love story. That was the first thing I said to him when we abruptly stopped kissing. We're not a love story. He was struck in place, as if by lightning and I never ran so fast in my life.

I didn’t know that at the time, but I was already in love with him and it couldn’t be undone.

He was at my door the next morning. I knew it was him, but I refused to let him in. We stood like that, the door in between us, worlds apart. He talked. He said he didn’t want to be enemies. That I was never an enemy. I told him I had made his life miserable. He laughed. You also made my life into something I didn’t know it could be, these past few months.

If you know Harry at all, you know he isn’t big on speeches. He hates them. But that day, beyond my door, he did make a speech to a stunned audience of one. He told me he thought he might be in love with me, even if he didn’t know how that happened, how it could be, but that what he did know is that he didn’t want to stay away, that he couldn’t stay away and that it didn’t have to make any sense at all because he was tired of making sense all the time. I laughed, unbelieving. You see, people like me don’t believe in good things coming their way, and Harry… he is a good thing. Not good as in perfect, but good as in you can reach out your hand and touch him. Good as in he makes you believe impossible things. Like the war ending. Like the darkness gone. Like saving the world. Like saving you.

You can’t like me, I say, but he only breathes on the other side of the door and says: Draco. Please let me in.

I didn’t. Not that day. You might have expected him to show up the next day. And the next. But he didn’t. I needed to be the one to do it, to make it happen. So one night I couldn’t do it anymore. I put on my coat and walked the distance to his home. I had refused magic a long time ago, but there are some things not even wands can do for you.

I don’t know how to do this, I said when he opened the door, and his eyes went wide, and his arm trembled and he stepped back to let me in to the stretch of light of his doorway. I gestured to the space between us. This, I repeated. The empty space stared back at me, beautiful and immense. This impossible, too-good-to-be-true-thing, this thing you want to make happen, I can’t take it, I can’t, but I—

And I stopped there, no more words, my chest rising and falling, my throat shutting down, panic like silk enclosing me. If you know me at all, you know I don't talk like this, but that night I had to, so I said: Harry. I want this, and the panic kept rising to my lips, but I said it again and again and again, I want this, Harry, Harry, Harry. His name melted on my lips, on our skin, later that night.

Sleep takes me finally, as I drop from the memory to his body, to this moment, to our bed.

I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. Even the longest of nights holds the promise of light.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel the writer's block trying to snatch my light, and so I return to drarry. I was listening to Eden, by Hooverphonic, on repeat, tonight, so this is what came of it. I hope you like it.


End file.
